The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Saturday demanded immediate arrests of the senior Congress leaders, including Jadish Tytler and Niranjan Patnaik, for the Thursday’s “assault” on police during the “Naveen Hatao Orissa Banchao” rally here in front of the Orissa Legislative Assembly.
The All-India Congress Committee general secretary Jagdish Tytler is in-charge of party’s Orissa affairs while Nirajan Patnaik is the state president of the party.
The BJD, which held a protest meeting at the exhibition ground here under the leadership of BJD youth wing president and government deputy chief whip Sanjaya Das Burma, alleged that the attack on the police officer on duty had brought disgrace to the state at national level.
“Since the Congress is out of power in the state for over 12 years now, it is making desperate bids how to dislodge the present government. By resorting to violence during its rally, the party displayed its character and people would never approve of such unruly conduct,” Mr Das Burma said. The BJD protest meeting was attended by leaders of all the frontal organisations of the party. Senior leaders like Ranendra Pratap Swain, Narendra Swain, Prasanna Patsani, Bed Prakash Agarwal, Pramila Mallick, Amar Satpathy, Bhubaneswar mayor Anant Jena, Cuttack mayor Soumendra Ghosh, BJD youth wing general secretary Bijay Nayak and Raghunath Sahoo in their address held Mr Tytler and Mr Patnaik responsible for Thursday’s incident.
Meanwhile, after the Bhubaneswar police on Friday lodged criminal conspiracy cases against Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler and Niranjan Patnaik in connection with Thursday’s clashes, the party on Saturday filed two separate counter cases against the state government and the police. In the FIR filed by the Congress, the party blamed them for alleged “brutalities” and “excesses” against party workers, besides registering “false” cases.
The clashes broke out on Thursday when close to 40,000 Congress workers were protesting outside the Assembly to demand the resignation of chief minister Naveen Patnaik for large-scale corruptions and lawlessness in the state.
While the police said the protesters threw stones at policemen first, the Congress alleged that the cops violated the law by hitting people on their heads.
The Congress also insisted that not all the thousands present during the protests were Congressmen and some BJD workers who had sneaked into the crowd played the mischief by pelting stones at the security personnel.